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COPYRIGHT DEPOSifc 



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77hs Special Student'* Edition of "The 
Initiates of the Flame" is dedicated by 
the author to the One Thousand Students 
of the Classes of 1 922, and is limited to 
one thousand copies of which this one is 



Number. 



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The 
INITIATES 

of the 

FLAME 




te tofjo Ifoes the Htfe shall 
fcnoto the doctrine 



FULLY ILLUSTRATED 



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Copyrighted, October, 1922 
All rights reserved 



Permission to copy or translate may be secured 
upon application 



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CONTENTS 

Page 
Introduction 7 

Foreword 13 

Chapter One 

The Fire Upon the Altar 15 

Chapter Two 

The Sacred City of Shamballa.... 25 

Chapter Three 

The Mystery of the Alchemist 35 

Chapter Four 

The Egyptian Initiate.. 45 

Chapter Five 

The Ark of the Covenant 55 

Chapter Six 

The Knights of the Holy Grail 63 

Chapter Seven 

The Mystery of the Pyramids 73 



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ILLUSTRATIONS 

Page 
The Cube Altar 14 

The Everburning Lamp . ...... 16 

The Masonic Censor.... 18 

The Grave Digger's Spade 20 

The Candle . . J. 22 

The Lotus ..., :................ 28 

The Rod That Budded .. ....... 30 

The Philosopher's Stone 34 

The Five Pointed Star 38 

The Marriage of the Sun and Moon....... 40 

The Pillars of the Temple..... 42 

The Serpent 44 

The Masonic Apron 46 

The Scepters of Egypt... 48 

The Sacred Scarab 50 

The Priest before the Ark of the Covenant 54 

The Rod that Budded, the Pot of Manna, and the 

Tablets of the Law 58 



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ILLUSTRATIONS 

(Continued) 

Page 
The Holy Grail 62 

The Stone and the Sword 64 

The Rosicrucian Rose 66 

The Sacred Spear 68 

Cross Section of the Great Pyramid of Gizah 74 

The Pyramid 76 

The Sphinx 78 

The Key and the Cross 82 

The White Grail 86 

The Black Grail 87 



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The Initiates of the Flame 

INTRODUCTION 

Few realize that even at the present stage of civil- 
ization in this world, there are souls who, like the 
priests of the ancient temples, walk the earth and 
watch and guard the sacred fires that burn upon the 
altar of humanity. Purified ones they are, who have 
renounced the life of this sphere in order to guard and 
protect the Flame, that spiritual principle in man, now 
hidden beneath the ruins of his fallen temple. 

As we think of the nations that are past, of Greece 
and Rome and the grandeur that was Egypt's, we sigh 
as we recall the story of their fall; and we watch the 
nations of today, not knowing which will be the next to 
draw its shroud around itself and join that great 
ghostly file of peoples that are dead. 

But everywhere, even in the rise and fall of nations, 
we see through the haze of materiality, justice; every- 
where we see reward, not of man but of the invincible 
One, the sternal Flame. 



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A great hand reaches out from the unseen and regu- 
lates the affairs of man. It reaches out from that great 
spiritual Flame which nourishes all created things, the 
never dying fire that burns on the sacred altar of 
Cosmos — that great fire which is the spirit of God. 

If we turn again to the races now dead, we shall, if 
we look, find the cause of their destruction. The light 
had gone out. When the flame within the body is with- 
drawn, the body is dead. When the light was taken 
from the altar, the temple was no longer the dwelling 
place of a living God. 

Degeneracy, lust, and passion, hates and fears, crept 
into the souls of Greece and Rome, and Black Magic 
overshadowed Egypt; the light upon the altar grew 
weaker and weaker. The priests lost the Word, the 
name of the Flame. Little by little the Flame flickered 
out, and as the last spark grew cold, a mighty nation 
died, buried beneath the dead ashes of its own spiritual 
fire. 

But the Flame did not die. Like spirit of which it is 
the essence, it cannot die, because it is life, and life 
cannot cease to be. In some wilderness of land or sea 
it rested once again, and there rose a mighty nation 
around that flame. So history goes on through the 
ages. As long as a people are true to the Flame, it 
remains, but when they cease to nourish it with their 
lives, it goes on to other lands and other worlds. 

Those who worship this Flame are now called 
heathens. Little do we realize that we are heathen 
ourselves until we are baptised of the Holy Spirit, 



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which is Fire, for fire is Light, and the children of the 
Flame are the Sons of Light, even as God is Light. 

There are those who have for ages labored with man 
to help him to kindle within himself this spark, which 
is his divine birthright. It is these who by their lives 
of self-sacrifice and service have awakened and tended 
this fire, and who through ages of study have learned 
the mystery it contained, that we now call the "Initiates 
of the Flame. ,, 

For ages they have labored with mankind to help him 
to uncover the light within himself, and on the pages 
of history they have left their seal, the seal of Fire. 

Unhonored and unsung they have labored with 
humanity, and now their lives are used as fairy stories 
to amuse children, but the time will yet come when the 
world shall know the work they did, and realize that 
our present civilization is raised upon the shoulders of 
the mighty demigods of the past. We stand as Faust 
stood, with all our lore, a fool no wiser than before, 
because we refuse to take the truths they gave us and 
the evidence of their experiences. Let us honor these 
Sons of the Flame, not by words, but by so living that 
their sacrifice shall not/BeGn vain. They have shown 
us the way, they have led man to the gateway of the 
unknown, and there in their robes of glory passed be- 
hind the Veil. Their lives were the key to their wisdom, 
as it must always be. They have gone, but in history 
they stand, milestones on the road of human progress. 

Let us watch these mighty ones as they pass silently 
by. First, Orpheus, playing upon the seven stringed 
lyre of his own being, the music of the spheres. Then 



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Hermes, the thrice greatest, with his emerald tablet of 
divine revelation. Through the shades of the past we 
dimly see Krishna, the illuminated, who on the battle- 
field of life taught man the mysteries of his own soul. 
Then we see the sublime Buddha, his yellow robe not 
half so glorious as the heart it covered, and our own 
dear Master, the man Jesus, his head surrounded with 
a halo of Golden Flame, and his brow serene with the 
calm of mastery. Then Mohammed, Zoroaster, Confu- 
cius, Odin, and Moses, and others no less worthy pass 
by before the eyes of the student. They were the Sons 
of Flame. From the Flame they came, and to the 
Flame they have returned. To us they beckon, and bid 
us join them, and in our robes of self -earned glory to 
serve the Flame they love. 

They were without creed or clan ; they served but the 
one great ideal. From the same place they all came, 
and to the same place they have returned. There was 
no superiority there. Hand in hand they labor for 
humanity. Each loves the other, for the power that 
has made them masters has shown them the Brother- 
hood of all life. 

In the pages that follow we will try to show this great 
thread, the spiritual thread, the thread of living fire 
that winds in and out through all religions and binds 
them together with a mutual ideal and mutual needs. 
In the story of the Grail and the Legends of King 
Arthur we find that thread wound around the Table of 
the King and the Temple of Mount Salvart. This same 
thread of life that passes through the roses of the 
Rosicrucians, winds among the pedals of the Lotus, and 
among the temple pillars of Luxor. THERE IS BUT 



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ONE RELIGION IN ALL THE WORLD, and that is 
the worship of God, the spiritual Flame of the universe. 
Under many names He is known in all lands, but as 
Iswari or Ammon or God, He is the same, the Creator 
of the universe, and fire is His universal symbol. 

We are the Flame-Born Sons of God, thrown out as 
sparks from the wheels of the infinite. Around this 
Flame we have built forms which have hidden our light, 
but as students we are increasing this light by love and 
service, until it shall again proclaim us Suns of the 
Eternal. 

Within us burns that Flame, and before Its altar the 
lower man must bow, a faithful servant of the Higher. 
When he serves the Flame he grows, and the light 
grows until he takes his place with the true Initiates of 
the universe, those who have given all to the Infinite, 
in the name of the Flame within. 

Let us find this Flame and also serve it, realizing that 
it is in all created things, that all are one because all 
are part of that eternal Flame, the fire of spirit, the life 
and power of the universe. 

Upon the altar of this Flame, to the true creator of 
this book, the writer offers it, and dedicate^it to the one 
Fire which blazes forth from God, and is now hidden 
within each living thing. 



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FOREWORD 



77/£ GREATEST OF MYSTERY SCHOOLS 

The World is the schoolroom of God. Our being in 
school does not make us learn, but within that school is the 
opportunity for all learning. It has its grades and its 
classes, its sciences and its arts, and admission to it is the 
birthright of man. Its graduates are its teachers, its pupils 
are all created things. Its examples are Nature, and its 
rules are God's laws. Those who would go into the greater 
colleges and universities must first, day by day, and year 
by year, work through the common school of life, and 
present to their new teachers the diplomas they have won, 
upon which is zvritten the name that none may read save 
those who have received it. 

The hours may seem long, and the teachers cruel, but 
each of us must walk that path, and the only ones ready to 
go onward are those zvho have passed through the gateway 
of experience^ 

GOD'S GREAT SCHOOL FOR MAN. 



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The Cube Altar: 

Of the elements of the earth is this altar composed. 
It is the great cube of matter. On or in this altar bums 
a Flame. It is this Flame that is the spirit of all created 
things. Man, know thyself. Thou art the Flame, and 
thy bodies are the living altar. 



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<Tke 

Initiates 
of the Flame 

CHAPTER I. 

THE FIRE UPON THE ALTAR 

As far back as our history goes we find that fire has 
played an important part in the religious ceremonial of 
the human race. In practically every religion we find 
the sacred altar fires, which were guarded by the 
priests and vestals with greater care than their own 
lives. In the Bible we find many references made to 
the sacred fires which were used as one form of devo- 
tion by the ancient Israelites. The Altar of Burnt Offer- 
ings is as old as the human race, and dates from the 
time when the first man, lifting himself out of the 
mists of ancient Lemuria, first saw the sun, the great 
Fire Spirit of the universe. Among the followers of 
Zoroaster, the Persian Initiate, fire has been used for 
centuries in honor of the great Fire God, Ormuzd, who 
is said by them to have created the universe. 

There are two paths or divisions of humanity whose 
history is closely related to that of the Wisdom Teach- 

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77^ Initiates of the Flame 







The Everburning Lamp: 

Know that the Flame that burns within thee and 
lights thy way is the ever burning lamp of the ancients. 
As their lamps were fed by the purest of oil, so thy 
spiritual Flame must be fed by a life of purity and 
altruism. 



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The Fire Upon the Altar 



ings. They embody the doctrines of fire and water, the 
two opposites of nature. Those who follow the path of 
faith or the heart, use water, and are known as the 
Sons of Seth, while those who follow the path of the 
mind and action are the Children of Cain, who was the 
son of Samael, the Spirit of Fire. Today we find the 
latter among the alchemists, the hermetic philosophers, 
the Rosicrucians, and the Freemasons. 

It is well for us to understand that we ourselves are 
the cube altar upon which and in which burns the altar 
fire. For many centuries the Initiate of fire has been 
nourishing and guarding the Spiritual Flame within 
himself, as the ancient priests watched day and night 
the altar fires of Vesta's temple. 

The ever burning lamp of the alchemist, which hav- 
ing burned thousands of years without fuel in the cata- 
combs of Rome, is but a symbol of this same spiritual 
fire within himself. In the picture we see the ever 
burning lamp which was carried by the Initiate in his 
wandering. It represents the spinal column of man, at ( 
the top of which is flickering a little blue and red flame, k 
As the lamp of the ancients was fed and kept burning by 
the purest of olive oil, so man is transmiting within 
himself and cleansing in the laver of purification the 
life essences, which, when turned upward, provide fuel 
for the ever burning lamp within himself. 

Upon the altars of the ancients were offered sacri- 
fices to their gods. The ancient Hierophant offered up 
sacrifices of spices and incense. The Masonic brother of 



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The Initiates of the Flame 




The Masonic Censor: 

As the perfume rising from the incense burner was 
acceptable in the sight of the Lord, so may our words 
and actions ever be a sweet incense acceptable in the 
sight of the Most High. 



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The Fire Upon the Altar 

today still has among his symbols the incense burner 
or censer, but few of the brothers recognize them- 
selves in this symbol. The ancients symbolized under 
such things as this the development of the individual, 
and as the tiny spark burning among the incense cubes 
slowly consumes all, so the Spiritual Flame within the 
student is slowly burning away and transmuting the 
base metals and properties within himself, and offering 
up the essence thereof as the smoke upon the altar of 
Divinity. It is said that King Solomon, when he com- 
pleted his temple, offered bulls as a sacrifice to the Lord, 
by burning them upon the temple altar. Those who 
believe in a harmless life wonder why so many refer- 
ences are made in the Bible to animal sacrifice. 

The student realizes that the animal sacrifices are 
those of the celestial zodiac, and that when the Ram or 
the Bull was offered upon the altar, it represented the 
qualities in man which come through Aries, the celes- 
tial Ram, and Taurus, the Bull in the zodiac. In other- 
words, the Initiate, passing through his tests and puri- 
fication, is offering upon the altar of his own higher 
being the lower animal instincts and desires within 
himself. Among the Masonic brothers we also find 
what is called the Symbol of Mortality. It is a spade, a 
coffin, and an open grave, while upon the coffin has been 
laid a sprig of acacia, or evergreen. In the picture 
we see the spade of the grave digger, which has been 
considered the symbol of death for centuries. 

In the Book of Thoth, that strange document which 
has descended to man at his present stage of evolution 

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The Initiates of the Flame 







The Grave Digger's Spade: 

Let us take the spade that now digs our grave 
through the passions and emotions of life and use it to 
unearth the secret room far below the rubbish of the 
fallen temple of the human soul. 



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77z<? FzVe Upon the Altar 

as a deck of playing cards, we find a very wonderful 
symbolism. Of all the suits of cards, that of the spade 
is the only suit in which all the court cards face away 
from the pip. In all the other kings and queens, the 
faces are looking at the little marker in the corner of 
the card, but in the spade suit, they look away from it. 
Now it is said that the spade has been taken from the 
acorn, but the occult student has a different idea. He 
sees in the spade, which has for ages been the symbol 
of death, a certain part of his own anatomy. If you will 
again turn to the picture of the spade, you will see, if 
you have ever studied anatomy, that the grave digger's 
spade is the spinal column, and the spade-shaped piece 
which is used on the deck of cards, is nothing more nor 
less than the sacrum bone. 




This bone forms the base of the spinal column, and is 
also the spear of the Passion. Through it and the 
foramana which pierce it, pass the roots of the spinal 
nerve, which indeed are the roots of the Tree of Life. 
It is the center through which are nourisned and fed 
the lower verterbrae of the spine, and the sacrum and 



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The Candle: 

This is the light that has gone out. It is the candle 
that is hidden under the bushel. This is the true light 
that forever dispels the darkness of ignorance and un- 
certainty. Let the light shine forth through a purified 
body and a balanced mind. For this light is the life of 
our brother creatures. 



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The Fire Upon the A Itar 

coxygeal bones that dig the graves for all created 
things. This point has been beautifully symbolized by 
the grave digger's spade, which has been used by the 
brothers of many mystic organizations for ages. The 
currents and forces working through these lower spinal 
nerves must be transmuted and lifted upward to feed 
the altar fire at the positive or upper end of the spine. 

The centering of thought or emotion upon higher or 
lower things, as the case may be, determines where 
this life energy will be expended. If the lower emotions 
predominate, the flame upon the altar burns low and 
flickers out, because the forces which feed it have been 
concentrated upon the lower centers. But when altru- 
ism predominates, then the lower forces are raised up- 
ward and pass through the purification which makes 
possible their being used as fuel for the ever burning 
lamp. Thus we see why it was a great sin to let the 
lamp go out, for the pillar of flames which hovers over 
the Tabernacle, purified and prepared after the direc- 
tions of the Most High, is the Spiritual Flame that, 
hovering above man, lights his way wherever he may 
go. 

The sun of our solar system, that is, the Spiritual 
Sun behind the physical globe, is one of these Flames. 
It began no greater than ours, and through the power 
of attraction and the transmuting of its ever increasing 
energies it has reached its present proportions. This 
flame in man is the "light that shineth in darkness." 
It is the Spiritual Flame within himself. It lights his 
way as no exterior light can. This radiating out from 
him brings into view, one by one, the hidden things of 



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The Initiates of the Flame 



the cosmos, and his ignorance is dispelled in exactly 
the same proportion as his light is spread, for the dark- 
ness of the unknown can only be removed by light, and 
the greater the light, the further back the darkness is 
driven. This is the Lamp of the Philosopher, which he 
carries through the dark passageways of life, and by 
the light of which he walks among the stones and along 
the narrow cliff edge without fear. But although he 
gain all other things and have not this light within 
himself, he cannot know where he goes; he cannot 
watch his footsteps ; and he cannot dispel his ignorance 
with the light of truth. 

Therefore let each student watch the fire that bums 
upon his altar. Let him also make that altar, his body, 
as beautiful and harmonious as possible, and let him 
also sacrifice upon that altar the frankincense and 
myrrh, his actions and his deeds. As in the Tabernacle 
he offers all upon the altar of divinity, so let him day 
by day dispel the symbols of mortality — the coffin and 
the open grave by which he prepared himself through 
the mastery of the lower emotions within himself — 
and recognize that no matter how crystallized or dead 
his life may be, the fact that he exists at all proves 
that the sprig of acacia, the promise of life and immor- 
tality, is somewhere within himself; and although the 
flame of life may appear faint or cold, if he will supply 
the fuel by his daily actions, he will kindle the altar 
flame once more within himself, which, shining forth, 
will also help his brother to kindle this flame, which is 
a living sacrifice to the living God. 



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Oke 

Initiates 
of the Flame 

CHAPTER II. 
THE SACRED CITY OF SHAMBALLA 

In every mythology and legendary religion of the 
world there is one spot that is sacred above all others 
to the great ideal of that religion. To the Norseman it 
was Valhalla, the City of the Slain, built of the spears 
of heroes, where feasting and warfare was the order of 
the day. Here the heroes fought all day and reveled 
by night. Every day they killed the wild boar and 
feasted on it, and the next day it came to life again. 
In the Northland they tell that Valhalla was high on 
the top of the mountains, and that it was connected to 
the earth below by Befrost, the Rainbow Bridge; that 
up and down this bridge the Gods came, and Odin, the 
All-father, came down from Asgard, the City of the 
Gods, and worked and labored with mankind. 

Among the Greeks, Mount Olympus was held sacred, 
and here the gods are said to have lived high on the 
top of a mountain. The Knights of the Grail are said 
to have had their castle among the crags and peaks of 

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The Initiates of the Flame 

Northern Spain on Mount Salvart. In every religion of 
the world there is a sacred spot: Meru of the oriental, 
and Mount Moriah and Mount Sinai (upon which the 
tablets of law were given to man) ; all those are symbols 
of one universal ideal, and as each of these religions 
claimed among the clouds a castle and a home, so it is 
said that all the religions of the world have their head- 
quarters in Shamballa, the Sacred City in the Gobi 
Desert of Mongolia. 

Among the oriental peoples there are wonderful 
legends of this sacred city, where it is said the Great 
White Lodge or Brotherhood meets to carry on the 
governing of world affairs. As the Assirs of Scanda- 
navia were twelve in number, as Olympus had twelve 
gods, so the Great White Brotherhood is said to have 
twelve members, which meet in Shamballa and direct 
the affairs of men. It is said that this center of uni- 
versal religion descended upon the earth when the 
polar cap, which was the first part of the earth to 
crystallize, became solid enough to support life. 
Science now knows that not only does the earth have 
two motions, that of rotation upon its axis and revolu- 
tion around the sun, but that it has nine other motions, 
according to Flammarion, the French astronomer. 
One of these motions is that of the alternation of the 
poles ; in other words, some day that part of the earth's 
surface which is now the North Pole will become the 
South Pole. Therefore it is said that the Sacred City 
has left its central position and after much wandering 
is now located in Mongolia. 

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r/z^ Sac red City of Shamballa 

Those who are acquainted with the Mohammedan 
religion will see something of great interest in the pil- 
grimage to the Kabba at Mecca, where thousands go 
each year to give honor to the Stone of Abraham, the 
great aerolight, upon which Mohammed is said to have 
rested his foot. Old and young alike, some even car- 
ried, wind through desert sands and endure untold 
hardships, many coming from great distances, to visit 
the place they cherish and love. In India we find the 
same thing. There are many sacred places to which 
pilgrims go, even as the Templars went in our Chris- 
tian religion to the Sepulcher of Christ. Few see in 
this anything more than an outward symbol, but the 
true student recognizes the great esoteric truth con- 
tained therein. The spiritual consciousness in man is 
a pilgrim on the way to Mecca. As this consciousness 
passes upward through the centers and nerves of the 
body, it is like the pilgrim, climbing the heights of 
Sinai, or the Knight of the Grail returning to Mount 
Salvart. 

When the spinal fire of man starts upward in its 
wanderings, it stops at many shrines and visits many 
holy places, for like the Masonic brother and his Jacob's 
Ladder, the way that leads to heaven is upward and 
inward. The spinal fire goes through the centers or 
seed ground of many great principles, and worships at 
the shrine of many Divine Essences within itself, but 
it is eternally going upward, and finally it reaches the 
great desert. Only after pain and suffering and long 
labor does it cross that waste of sand. This is the 



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The Initiates of the Flame 





The Lotus: 

May your consciousness be lifted upward through the 
Tree of Life within yourself until in the brain it blos- 
soms forth as the Lotus, that rising from the darkness 
of the lower world, lifts its flow.er to catch the rays of 
the Sun. 



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The Sacred Cit y of Shamballa ■ 

Gethsemane of the higher man, but finally he crosses 
the sacred desert, and before him in the heart of the 
Lotus rises the Golden City, Shamballa. 




FRONT/AL SI NUS 



In the spreading of the bone between the eyes called 
the frontal sinus, is the seat of the divine in man. 
There, in a peculiar gaseous material, floats, or rather 
exists, or is, the fine essence which we know as the 
Spirit. This is the Lost City in the Sacred Desert, 
connected to the lower world by the Rainbow Bridge, 
or the Silver Cord, and it is to this point in himself 
that the student is striving to rise. This is the Sacred 
Pilgrimage of the Soul, in which the individual leaves 
the lower man and the world below and climbs upward 
into the Higher Man or Higher World, the brain. This 
is the great pilgrimage to Shamballa, and as that great 
city is the center for the direction of our earth, so the 
corresponding great city in man is the center for his 
governmental system. 



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The Initiates of the Flame 



The Rod That Budded : 

The buds in the Rod are the seven centers within 
yourself, which when you develop their spiritual powers 
shine out as centers of fire within your own being. The 
ancients have taken flowers to symbolize these centers, 
which when they shine out show that the dead stick, 
cut from the Tree of Life, has budded. 



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The Sacred City of Shamballa 

When any other thing governs man, he is not attuned 
to his own higher self, and it is only when the gods, 
representing the higher principle, come down the Rain- 
bow Bridge and labor with him, teaching him the arts 
and sciences, that he is truly receiving his divine birth- 
right. In the Orient the student looks forward with 
eager longing to the time when he shall be allowed to 
worship before the gates of the sacred city; when he 
also shall see the Initiates in silent conclave around 
the circular table of the zodiac; when the veil of Isis 
shall be torn away, and the cover lifted from the Grail 
Cup. 



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Let the student remember that all of these things 
must first happen within himself before he can find 
them in the universe without. The twelve Elder 
Brothers within himself must first be reached and un- 
derstood before those of the universe can be compre- 
hended. If he would find the great Initiates without, 
he must first find them within; and if he would see 
that Sacred City in the Lotus Blossom, he must first 
open that Lotus within himself, which he does, petal 
by petal, when he purifies and attunes himself to the 
higher principles within. The Lotus is the spinal col- 
umn once more ; its roots, deep in materiality ; its blos- 
som, the brain ; and only when he sends upward nour- 
ishment and power, can that Lotus blossom within 
himself — blossom forth with its many petals, giving 
out their spiritual fragrance. 

Sometimes you will see in store windows funny little 
Chinese gods or oriental Buddhas sitting on the blossom 



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77&e Initiates of the Flame 



of a lotus. In fact, if you look carefully, you will find 
that nearly all of the oriental gods are so depicted. 
This means that they have opened within themselves 
that Spiritual Consciousness which they call the Shu- 
shuma. You have seen the funny little hats worn by 
the Hindu gods. They are made to represent a flower 
upside down, and once more, like the rod of Aaron that 
budded, we see the reference made to the unfolding of 
consciousness within. When the lotus blossom has 
reached maturity, it drops its seed, and from this seed 
new plants are produced. It is the same within the 
spiritual consciousness, which, when the plant is fin- 
ished and its work is done, is released to work and 
produce other things. 

In the Western World the lotus has been changed 
to the rose. The roses of the Rosicrucian, the roses 
of the Masonic degrees, and also those of the Order 
of the Garter in England, all stand for the same thing, 
the awakening of consciousness and the unfolding into 
full bloom of the soul qualities of man. When man 
awakens and opens this bud within himself, he finds, 
like the gold pollen in a flower, this wonderful spiritual 
city, Shamballa, in the heart of the lotus. When this 
pilgrimage of his spiritual fire is accomplished, he is 
liberated from the top of the mountain, as in the ascen- 
sion of Christ, and the spiritual man, freed by his pil- 
grimage from the Wheel of Bondage, rises upward 
from among his disciples, the convolutions of the brain, 
with the great cry of the Initiate, which has sounded 
through the Mystery Schools for ages when the puri- 



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The Sacred City of Shamballa 



fied student goes onward and upward to become a pillar 
in the temple of his God. With that last cry the true 
mystery of Shamballa, the sacred city, is understood 
and he joins the ranks of those who in white robes of 
purity, their own soul bodies, gaze down upon the world 
and see others liberated in the same way, and who also 
sound the eternal tocsin, "consumatum est" (it is 
finished). 



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The Initiates of the Flame 




The Philosopher's Stone: 

This is the true stone of the philosopher, which gives 
him power over all created things. This stone is him- 
self. The experiences of his evolution have cut and 
polished the rough stone until in the Initiate it reflects 
the light of creation from a thousand different facets. 



tfi 



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<Tke 

Initiates 

of trie Flame 

chapter in. 

THE MYSTERY OF THE ALCHEMIST 

There are very few occult students today who have 
not heard of the alchemist, but there are very few 
who know anything about the strange men who lived 
during the Middle Ages and concealed under chemical 
symbolism the history of the soul. At a time, when 
to express a religious thought was to court annihila- 
tion at the stake or wheel, they labored silently in 
underground caves and cellars to learn the mysteries 
of nature which the religious opinions of their day 
denied them the privilege of doing. Let us picture the 
alchemist of old, deep in the study of natural lore. 
We find him among the test tubes and retorts of his 
hidden laboratory. Around him are massive tomes and 
books by ancient writers; he is a student of nature's 
mystery, and has devoted years, lives maybe, to the 
work he loves. His hair has long since grayed with 
age. 

By the light of his little lanm he reads slowly and 
with difficulty the strange symbols on the pages before 

EH' =©■ »B 

35 



77ze Initiates of the Flame 

him. His mind is centered upon one thing, and that 
is the finding of the Philosopher's Stone. With all the 
chemicals at his command, their various combinations 
thoroughly understood, he is laboring with his furnace 
and his burners to make of the base metals the Philoso- 
pher's Gold. At last he finds the key and gives to the 
world the secret of the Philosopher's Gold and the 
Immortal Stone. Salt, sulphur, and mercury are the 
answer to his problem ; from them he makes the Phil- 
osopher's Stone; from them he extracts the Elixir of ^ 
Life ; with the power that they give him he transmutes 
the base metals into gold. The world laughs at him, 
but he goes on in silence, really doing the things the 
world believes impossible. ^ 



After many years of labor he takes his little lamp 
and silently slips away into the Great Unknown. No 
one knows what he has done, or the discoveries that 
he has made, but he, with his little lamp, still explores 
the mysteries of the universe. As the close of the fif- 
teenth century clouded him with mystery, so the dawn 
of the twentieth century is crowning him with the 
glory of his just reward, for the world is beginning 
to realize the truths he knew, and to marvel at the 
understanding which his years of labor had earned 
for him. 

Man has been an alchemist from the time when he 
first raised himself, and with the powers long latent 
pronounced himself as human. Experiences are the 
chemicals of life which the philosopher is experiment- 



ffl 1 ' Q^ ^Bi 

36 



The Mystery of the Alchemist 

ing with. Nature is the great book whose secrets he 
seeks to understand through her own wondrous sym- 
bolism. His own Spiritual Flame is the lamp by which 
he reads, and without this the printed pages mean 
nothing to him. His own body is the furnace in which 
he prepares the Philosopher's Stone; his senses and 
organs are the test tubes, and incentive is the flame 
from the burner. Salt, sulphur, and mercury are the 
chemicals of his craft. According to the ancient phil- 
osophers, salt was of the earth earthy, sulphur was a 
fire which was spirit, while mercury was nothing, only 
a messenger like the winged Hermes of the Greeks. 
His color is purple, which is the blending of the red 
and the blue — the blue of the spirit and the red of 
the body. 

The alchemist realizes that he himself is the Phil- 
osopher's Stone, and that this stone is made diamond- 
like when the salt and the sulphur, or the spirit and 
the body, are united thorugh mercury, the link of 
mind. Man is the incarnated principle of mind as the 
animal is of emotion. He stands with one foot on the 
heavens and the other on the earth. His higher being 
is lifted to the celestial spheres, but the lower man 
ties him to matter. Now the philosopher, building his 
sacred stone, is doing so by harmonizing his spirit and 
his body. The result is the Philosopher's Stone. The 
hard knocks of life chip it away and facet it until it 
reflects lights from a million different angles. 

The Elixir of Life is once again the Spirit Fire, or 
rather the fuel which nourishes that fire, and the turn- 



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77z<? Initiates of the Flame 




The Five Pointed Star: 

This picture, known to all Masons, is that of the Soul. 
It is the Star of Bethlehem, which heralds the coming 
of the Christ within. The two clasped hands are the 
spirit and body united in the marriage of the Lamb. 
It is from the union of the higher with the lower that 
the Christ is bom. 



m 



38 



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The Mystery of the Alchemist 

ing of the base metal into gold is accomplished when 
he transmutes the lower man into spiritual gold. This 
he does by study and love. Thus he is building within 
himself the lost panacea for the world's woe. The 
turning of the base metal into gold can be called a 
literal fact, as the same chemical combination which 
spiritually produces gold, will also do this physically. 
It is a known fact that many of the ancient alchemists 
really did create the precious metal out of lead, alloy, 
etc. But it was upon the principle that all things con- 
tain some part of everything else; in other words, 
every grain of sand or drop of water has in some pro- 
portion every element of the universe therein. There- 
fore the alchemist did not try to make something from 
nothing, but rather to extract and build that which 
already was, and this the student knows is the only 
possible course of procedure. 

Man can create nothing from nothing, but he does 
contain within, in potential energy, all things ; and like 
the alchemist with his metals, he is simply working 
with that which he already has. The living Philoso- 
pher's Stone is a very beautiful thing. Indeed, like 
the fire opal, it shines with a million different lights, 
changing with the mood of the wearer. The transmut- 
ing process, whereby the spiritual fire passing through 
the furnace of purification radiates from the body as 
the soul body of gold and blue, is a very beautiful one. 

The Masons have among their symbols that of a 
five-pointed star with two clasped hands within it, and 



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The Initiates of the Flame 




The Marriage of the Sun and Moon : 

This takes place in man when the heart and mind 
are joined in eternal union. It occurs when the positive 
and negative poles within are united, and from that 
union is made the Philosopher's Stone. 



S 



S> 



40 



'all 1Q1 ==ig 

T/?<? Mystery of the Alchemist 

in that we have the mystery of the Philosopher's Stone. 
The clasped hands represent the united man in which 
the higher and the lower are working for their mutual 
betterment, by a co-operative rather than a competitive 
system. The five-pointed star is the soul body, born of 
this co-operation; it is the living Philosopher's Stone, 
more precious than all the jewels of earth. From it 
pour the rivers of life spoken of in the Bible ; it is the 
Star of the Morning that heralds the dawn of Mastery, 
and is the reward that comes to those who follow in 
the footsteps of the ancient alchemist. 

It is well for the student to realize that the alchemy 
of life produces in natural sequence all of the states of 
progression which are explained in the writings of the 
alchemist, until finally the sun and the moon are united 
as described in the Hermetic Marriage, which is, in 
truth, the marriage of the body and the spirit for the 
mutual development of each other. We are the alchem- 
ists who centuries ago carried on in secret our studies 
of the soul, and we still have the same opportunity 
that we had then, even more than then, for now we 
can state our opinions with little danger of personal 
injury. The modern alchemist thus has an opportunity 
that his ancient brother never had. On a busy street 
corner he daily sees nature's experiments carried on. 
He sees the mixing of metals, and from the every-day 
book of life, through the power of analogy, he may 
study Divinity. Through experience and often suffer- 
ing the steel of his spirit is tempered by the flame of 
life. As the moon in the zodiac touches off like a fuse 



B 1 'Q 1 — >B 

41 



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IK NL 



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77z£ Initiates of the Flame 




P 



The Pillars of the Temple: 

These pillars symbolize the heart and mind, the posi- 
tive and the negative poles of life. Those who would 
enter the temple must pass BETWEEN the pillars. 
Every extreme is dangerous. It is the point between 
all poles that is safe to stand upon. You cannot enter 
the temple by the development of either the heart or 
mind alone, but only by the equal development of both. 



tfi 



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42 



77z<? Mystery of the Alchemist 

the happenings of life, so his own desires and wishes 
touch off the powers of his soul, and the experiences 
may be transmuted into soul qualities when he has 
developed the eye which enables him to read the sim- 
plest of all books — everyday life. 

The alchemist of today is not hidden in caves and 
cellars, studying alone, but as he goes on with his work, 
it is seen that walls are built around him, and while he 
is in the world, like the master of old, he is not of it. 
As he goes further in his work, the light of other peo- 
ple's advice and outside help grows weaker and weaker, 
until finally he stands alone in darkness, and then 
comes the time that he must use his own lamp, and 
the various experiments which he has carried on must 
be his guide. He must take the Elixir of Life which 
he has developed and with it fill the lamp of his spir- 
itual consciousness, and holding that above his head, 
walk into the Great Unknown, where if he has been a 
good and faithful servant, he will learn of the alchemy 
of Divinity. Where now test tubes and bottles are his 
implements, then worlds and globes he will study, and 
as a silent watcher will learn from that Divine One, 
who is the Great Alchemist of all the universe, the 
greatest alchemy of all, the creation of life, the main- 
tenance of form, and the building of worlds. 



SI 1 ' @ « =jEf 



43 



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T/z^ Initiates of the Flame 




The Serpent: 

This is the serpent crown of the ancient Gods. It 
shows that the two paths or parts of the spirit fire 
have been united. This crown is the symbol of mastery 
and the union takes place within the student when the 
life forces are lifted to the brain. 



tfi 



•fi 



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^| l 'O ' 3^1 



Initiates 
of the Flame 

CHAPTER IV. 
THE EGYPTIAN INITIATE 

Many ages have elapsed since the Egyptian Priest 
King passed through the pillars of Thebes. Ages be- 
fore the sinking of Atlantis, thousands of years before 
the Christian Era, Egypt was a land of great truths. 
The hand of the Great White Brotherhood was held 
out to the Empire of the Nile, and the ancient pyramid 
passages resounded with the chants of the Initiates. 
It was then that the Pharaoh, now called half -human, 
half-divine, reigned in ancient Egypt. Pharaoh is the 
Egyptian word for king. Many of the later Pharaohs 
were degenerate and of little account. It is only the 
early Pharaohs we now list among the Priest Kings. 

Try to picture for a moment the great Hall of Luxor 
— its inscriptive columns holding up domes of solid 
granite, each column carved with the histories of the 
gods. There at the upper end of the chamber sat the 
Pharaoh of the Nile in his robes of state ; around him 
his counsellors, chief among them the priest of the 



33 ' ' Qc — 'E 

45 



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nOc 



ifi 



The Initiates of the Flame 




The Masonic Apron: 

In the triangle we see spirit descending into the 
square of matter. Let us so purify matter that spirit 
may shine through it and make of us lights to guide 
the footsteps of humanity. 



y^ 



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SI 1 iQ i- =nj 

r/z^ Egyptian Initiate 

temple. An imposing spectacle it was: the gigantic 
frame of the later Atlantean, robed in gold and price- 
less jewels; on his head the crown of the North and 
South, the double empire of the ancient; on his fore- 
head the coiled serpent of the Initiate, the serpent 
which was raised in the wilderness that all who looked 
upon it might live ; that sleeping serpent power in man, 
which coiled head downward around the tree of life, 
drove him from the garden of the Lord, but which 
raised upon the Cross, became the symbol of the Christ. 

The Pharaoh was an Initiate of Scorpio, and the 
serpent is the transmuted Scorpio energy, which work- 
ing upward in the regenerated individual is called the 
Kundalini. This serpent was the sign of Initiation. It 
meant that within him the serpent had been raised, for 
the true Pharaoh was a priest of God, as well as a mas- 
ter of men. There he sat upon the cube altar throne, 
indicating his mastery over the four elements of his 
physical body — a judge of the living and of the dead, 
who in spite of all his power and glory, having about 
him the grandeur of the world's greatest empire, still 
bowed in humble supplication to the will of the gods. 
In his hands he carries the triple sceptre of the Nile, 
the Shepherd's Crook, the Anubis-headed Staff and the 
Flail or Whip. These were the symbols of his work. 
They represent the powers which he had mastered. 
With the whip he had subjugated his physical body; 
with the Shepherd's Crook he was the guardian and 
keeper of his emotional body ; with the Anubis-headed 
Staff he was master of his mind and worthy to wield 



SI 1 '@ l — 'Si 

47 



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The Initiates of the Flame 







The Sceptres of Egypt: 

These are the three bodies that are the tools with 
which we are to build our temple. When they are mas- 
tered they are the living proof of our right to kingship. 



tfi 



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48 



si 



The Egyptian Initiate 



the powers of government over others, because, first of 
all, he obeyed the laws himself. 

With all his robes of state and with the scarab 
upon his breast, and with the All-seeing Eye above his 
throne, there was still nothing as precious or as sacred 
to the ancient Egyptian Priest King as the triangular 
girdle or apron which was the symbol of his initiation. 
The apron of the ancient Egyptian carried with it the 
same symbolism as the Masonic apron of today. It 
symbolized the purification of the bodies, when the seat 
of the lower emotions, Scorpio, was covered by the 
white sheepskin of purification. This symbol of his 
purification was the. most precious belonging of the 
ancient Pharaoh ; and this plain insignia, worn by many 
others below him in rank and dignity, but equal to him 
in spiritual purification, was the most precious of all 
things to the Priest King. There he sat, written upon 
him in the words of the Initiate, the symbols of his 
purification and mastery, a wise king of a wise people. 
And it was through these Priest Kings that the Divine 
worked, for they were of the order of Melchisedec. 
Through them was formed that doctrine which degen- 
eracy has not been able to entirely obliterate, which we 
know as the divine right of kings — divine because 
through spirituality and growth God was able to mani- 
fest through them. They were conscious instruments 
in the hands of a ready writer, willing and proud to do 
the work of those with whom through knowledge and 
truth they had attuned themselves. 

But the time came, as in all nations, when selfishness 



33 1 i Q r =3 Eg 

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T/i£ Initiates of the Flame 




The Sacred Scarab: 

In this form the ancient Egyptians worshiped Khe- 
pera, the rising Sun, and the sacred scarab was buried 
with the dead as the symbol of resurrection. For as 
the ^un rises from the darkness of night, so the divine 
spirit rises from the body that is no more. The life is 
eternal. 



iff 



hfi 



50 



a« »Q' — ^ ; 

77z£ Egyptian Initiate 

and egotism entered the heart of king and people alike, 
and slowly the hand from the Great White Brotherhood 
that fed ancient Egypt was withdrawn, and the powers 
of darkness transformed the land of glory into one of 
ruins, and the names of mighty kings were buried 
beneath the oblivion of degeneracy. Mighty cataclysms 
shook the world, and out of the land of darkness the 
Great White Brotherhood carried the chosen people into 
the promised land; Egypt, the land of glory, 'disinte- 
grated into dust. 

The great temples of the Pharaohs are ruins, and the 
temples of Isis are but broken heaps of sandstone. But 
what of the priest kings who labored there in the days 
of its glory? They are still with us, for those who 
were leaders before are leaders now, if they have con- 
tinued to walk the path. Although his sceptre is gone, 
and his priestly vestments have moulded away, the 
Priest King still walks the earth with the dignity and 
the power and the childish simplicity that before made 
him great. He no longer wears the robes of his order. 
Although he bears no credentials, he is as much a priest 
king now as then, for he still bears the true insignia of 
his rank. The coiled serpent has given place to knowl- 
edge and love. The hand that bestowed the riches of 
the past does little acts of kindness now. Although he 
no longer carries the sceptres of self-mastery, still he 
manifests that mastery in his daily life. Although the 
altar fires within the temple at Karnac have long been 
dead, the true fire within himself still burns, and before 
that he still bows as he bowed in the days of Egypt's 

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51 



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ra 



r/z^ Initiates of the Flame 



glory. Although the priest no longer is his counsellor, 
and the wise ones of his country no longer aid him in 
governmental problems, still he is never alone, for the 
priests in white and the counsellors in blue still march 
with him and whisper words of strength when he needs 
them. 

Have you seen people that somehow you liked regard- 
less of appearances? Have you seen other charming 
people whom you hated in spite of their charms ? Have 
you seen learned people who were fools or impressed 
you as such, or people who knew little and yet you felt 
were wise? Those are the insignia of rank, which the 
loss of title or position cannot destroy. Kings with or 
without crowns they were — not puppets dressed in taw- 
dry tinsel. And they still are kings and will be to the 
end of time, and they still manifest their rank, not by 
their superiority, and their high-headedness, but by the 
soul qualities which they radiate from themselves. The 
purity of their lives still radiates outward from those 
who wore the apron of the Initiate, for while that trian- 
gular apron with its serpent drawn upon it has long 
since rotted away, still the spiritual counterpart of that 
symbol radiates in their daily lives, proving beyond all 
dispute that they were Priest Kings and are today. 
We find them in every walk of life — in high places and 
down in the mire of life. But wherever we find them, 
they are still the mouthpieces of the gods, and through 
them comes the promise to all who strive. They are 
kings, not of the earth but of heaven, and in the life of 
our own Master we find one who joined himself to those 



m 



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Iwl 



The Egyptian Initiate 



who served, and was a true King even when his only 
crown was a wreath of thorns. 

Still in the pyramid of Gizeh, the initiations continue ; 
still the Initiate receives the insignia of his rank. Be- 
fore that Fire within himself he makes his vows, and 
upon the burning altar of his own higher being he lays 
his crown and his sceptre, his robes and his diamonds, 
his hates and his fears, and sanctifies his life as a 
Priest King, and swears to serve none but his own 
higher self, the god within. His robes are his soul 
body ; and his crown is his life, and in the streets of life 
he is enthroned. The dusky towers and factory chim- 
neys around him fade into the templed pillars of Luxor, 
and with a lunch pail on his arm, his face brown with 
honest dirt, he is as much a king as when the crown of 
the double Nile rested upon his brow, and the priest 
of the temple made him one with his God and his 
fellowman. 



Jfi 



53 



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DKZBC 



H 



The Initiates of the Flame 











The Priest before the Ark of the Covenant, 
and the Spirit over the Mercy Seat. 



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54 



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ro ' Q«= =»i^i 



Oke 

Initiates 
of the Flame 

CHAPTER V. 

THE ARK OF THE COVENANT 

One of the most interesting symbols that has come 
down to us from the ancients is that of the Ark, or the 
box that was said to contain the sacred relics. Many 
people believe that this belongs particularly to the 
Jewish nation, but this is a great mistake, because it 
has been the birthright of every country to have the 
Ark. All have, like the Jewish people, lost much of 
their power and glory when they lost the sacred Ark. 
In ancient Chaldea and Phoenicia the Ark was well 
known. India celebrates it as the Lotus, and the an- 
cient Egyptians tell how the moon god Osiris was im- 
prisoned in an ark. In all the Mystery Religions of the 
world, individually and cosmically, the ark represents 
the fountain-head of wisdom. Over it the Shekinah's 
glory hovers, as a column of flames by night and a 
pillar of smoke by day. Every country has seen and 
felt its presence when the Priest Kings and Initiates 
bring out of an old civilization, lost because of crys- 
tallization, the sacred Ark, and surrounded by those 



J3 < iQ l- upfi 

55 



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iffl 



The Initiates of the Flame 



faithful to the truth carry it into other lands and among 
other peoples. 






In every creed and religion we find crystallization. 
We find small groups of people separating themselves 
from their brother man. We find those who, clinging 
to the old, refuse to advance with the new, and when- 
ever we find this crystallization, we find the spirit of 
truth carried away to other people and embodied in 
other doctrines. The ancient Ark of the Israelite never 
had removed from it the staves by which it was carried 
and moved, until finally it was placed in Solomon's 
temple. Neither does the spirit fire in man rest until 
finally it is enthroned in the holy place of his solar 
temple. Ever towards the rising sun its bearers carry 
this sacred truth. 

Nations are born of those who love the truth, and are 
buried when they forget it. The time has come when 
its silent bearers have taken the sacred Ark and the 
Shekinah's glory, and in solemn file have moved across 
the waters and brought it to the new world. The call 
has sounded through the universe, and those who are 
true to their own higher principles have surrounded 
the sacred chest. Those who have sworn alliance to 
their own higher being are following the priests and 
their sacred burden, and a beautiful mystery temple is 
being built in this beautiful land of ours, loved and 
guarded by those who are laboring for humanity. The 
staves are still in the Ark, however, and only when real 
good can be done by it will it remain. 



*fi 



56 



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!T/z<? z4r & of the Covenant 

The opportunity is now confronting the Western 
World. The knowledge of the ancients, the wisdom of 
the ages is knocking at the door and seeking those who 
will follow it. The bearers of the Ark have stopped 
and are gathering a nucleus of spiritual souls to carry 
on their work, and whether or not the word of the Lord 
will remain with a nation depends upon its own actions, 
and the actions of a nation are the collective actions of 
its individuals. If it finds nothing here attuned to 
itself, if it finds few that will answer to its call, the 
call of service and brotherhood, then will its priests lift 
again the staves and the sacred work will go out into 
other lands. 

The life of a country thus gone, like the ancient city 
of the Golden Gate it will be swallowed up in oblivion. 
The call is sounding, and those who love the Truth and 
think and care for the Light must join that band of 
servers who have for centuries dedicated themselves 
to the preservation of Truth. Their lives they have 
given a thousand times, their happiness has been second 
to their duty. They are the keepers of the sacred 
Word, and the law of attraction draws to them all who 
love and live the Truth. A great influx of spiritual 
light comes to those who live the life and have learned 
the doctrine, and regardless of clan or country they 
have joined the silent file of watchers and workers 
around the sacred Ark of the Covenant. Every indi- 
vidual by his daily actions is expressing more plainly 
than by words his ideals, his desires, and his attitude 
towards this great work. The composite attitude of a 

57 



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The Initiates of the Flame 



n 



X 



2E 



J> JAL ^II 




The Rod that Budded, the Pot of Manna, and the Tab- 
lets of the Law: 

In these three things contained within the Ark we 
see the threefold spirit contained within the ark of 
man's bodies. 



m 






ifi 



The Ark of the Covenant 

certain number of people either shuts out or lets in the 
light. Therefore every individual has a great duty, a 
great work has to be done, and to that the true student 
must dedicate his life. Then wherever he may go, 
whatever he may do, he is being led, and the Shekinah's 
glory directs his footsteps. 

In the brain of man, between the wings of the kneel- 
ing cherubim, is the mercy seat, and there man speaks 
with his God as the priest of the tabernacle spoke to the 
spirit of the Lord hovering between the wings of the 
Angels. Man is again the Ark, and within him are the 
three principles, the Father, the Son, and the Holy 
Spirit — the tablets of the law, the pot of manna, and 
the rod that budded. But as in the case of the ancient 
Israelites, when they became crystallized the pot of 
manna and the rod that budded were removed from 
the Ark, and all that was left were the tablets or the 
letters of the law. When the individual crystallizes and 
excludes various sidelights from his mind, he excludes 
the life force which was flowing to him. In shutting 
out strangers, he shuts out his own life, and all that he 
has left are the tablets of the law, the material reasons 
from which the spiritual life has gone. 

Solomon's temple, or the perfected temple of the 
human body, the perfected temple of the universe and 
the perfected temple of the soul, finally forms the per- 
fect shrine for the living Ark. There at the head of a 
great cross it is placed, and there in man it becomes 
permanently fixed. The staves of polarity upon which 
it was carried are removed, and it becomes a living 



iff 



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r/z^ Initiates of the Flame 

thing, a permanent place where man converses with his 
God. There man, the purified priest, arrayed in the 
robes of his order, the garments of his soul, converses 
with the spirit hovering over the Mercy Seat. This 
Ark within is always present, but man can only reach 
it after he has passed through the outer court of the 
Tabernacle, after he has passed through all the degrees 
of initiation, and after he has taken the Third Degree 
and becomes a Grand Master. Then and then only can 
he enter into the presence of his Lord, and there in the 
darkened chamber, lighted by the jewels of his own 
breast plate, he converses with the Most High, the true 
spiritual essence within himself. 

We are working towards this, and the time will come 
when each person for himself will know the mystery of 
the Ark, when the student through purification shall be 
led through the door of the Holy of Holies and there be 
enveloped by the Light of Truth. This was his birth- 
right which he sold for a mess of pottage. "To this end 
came he into the world that he might bear witness to 
this truth, that through this light all men might be 
saved." The Ark, that great spiritual principle, sur- 
rounded by its loving workers, is calling all to follow it. 

When through materiality and degeneracy a great 
people are destroyed or a continent sinks beneath the 
ocean, then those that are true are called around the 
Ark, and as its faithful servers are led out of the land 
of darkness into the new world and a promised paradise. 
All great teachings set forth the same thing. The 

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student will find that it is true, and when he allies him- 
self with the powers of light, when he becomes a chan- 
nel for its expression, and when he radiates it from 
himself to all who need it, then indeed will the Light 
protect him and he shall become a Sun of God. 




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The tjoly Grail: 

See in this cup your own body within which is the 
life blood of the Sun Spirit of the Universe. Each day 
that we live we perpetuate the Last Supper, and in all 
that we do we drink again the blood of Christ, the life 
power of the Cosmos. 



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CHAPTER VI. 
KNIGHTS OF THE HOLY GRAIL 

Before starting to take up the study of the Grail 
legends, it will be well for all who are interested to read 
those tales that are now listed under the heading of 
children's fairy stories. For example the story of good 
King Arthur and his Round Table is a cosmic myth, 
and while there is little doubt that he as a man also 
lived, the real mystery as in the story of the Christ, is 
not the literal tale, but the great mystic or occult truth 
that it concealed under allegory and parable. It is the 
same with the story of Parsifal which can never be 
really understood and appreciated until the student 
sees in the Knight and later King of the Sacred Cup, 
his own spiritual development and the temptations he 
must also master if he would become a King of the 
Grail. 

In Lohengrin also the same truth is shown to the 
world. It is the path of Initiation along which each 
must pass on his road to self-mastery. To every nation 
and in every tongue sacred legends have been given to 



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The Stone and the Sword: 

WHOEVER CAN DRAW THIS SWORD FROM 
THIS STONE IS THE MASTER OF THE UNIVERSE. 



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teach man the path he must follow. The blind Homer 
of the Greeks who told of the wanderings of Ulysses 
gave the same great truths to the world. The Scalds 
of ancient Norway and Sweden and the Prophets of the 
Jews used the same means, and everywhere from the 
Sacred Books of the East to the legends of the Amer- 
ican Indians we find one great connected truth told to 
many different people in ways that were best suited 
for their development. 

Such a truth is the legend of the Round Table, given 
to King Arthur as a wedding gift. All true students 
know what wedding that was. Not of earth but the 
wedding of the Spiritual and Intellectual within the 
Initiate himself, when the spirit and the body are 
united eternally, each swearing to honor and protect 
the other. Of such a marriage was the union of Arthur 
and Guinevere in the legend of the King. 

Let us first of all consider the coming of Arthur the 
King. We read in the legend of Arthur regarding 
Merlin the Magician, the wise man who it is said had 
charge of the coming King during his youth. Merlin 
represents the hand of the Elder Brothers, who real- 
izing that a great ego had come into the world, had 
consecrated themselves to the work of preparing him 
for his mission. 

It was under the direction of Merlin, the master 
mind, that the anvil and stone with the sword thrust 
into it were raised in the square of the city when it 
became necessary for a new king to be selected. It 



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The Rosicrucian Rose: 

In this flower, which was painted upon the center of 
King- Arthur's Table, we see the soul of man, which 
through purification and service has blossomed out with 
all the grandeur of the Initiate. 



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The Knights of the Holy Grail 

was he also who called all of the brave knights of the 
country and told them that the one who could draw 
forth the sword would be king of all the land. And of 
all the knights in the land, Arthur the half -grown boy 
was the only one who could release the sword. 

There is a very wonderful mystery of the soul con- 
tained within that divine allegory. Let us read the 
letters that were engraved upon the sword. "WHO SO 
PULLETH OUT THIS SWORD OF THIS STONE AND 
ANVIL IS RIGHT-WISE KING BORN OF ENG- 
LAND." 

The cube stone is the body ; it has been so symbolized 
for centuries, and today among the Masons the Ashler 
is the symbol of Man. Experience is the anvil, and it is 
upon this anvil that the sword is tempered. The sword 
is spirit, and he who would be King in the true spiritual 
sense of the word must first show his divine power by 
freeing the Sword of Spirit from the casings of the 
lower man and the world. 

It is the same symbol as that later used by Sir Gal- 
ahad, the guileless knight, the personification of the 
purified man, who comes without a sword but who later 
arms himself with the sword of spirit that he draws 
from the cube block which was floating down the river 
(of life) past Camelot. Sir Galahad had the strength 
of ten because his heart was pure, and the Knight of 
today must follow in the same path. 

If you have read the story of King Arthur, you will 
remember how he was given Excalibur, the enchanted 



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The Sacred Spear: 

This is the spear of Passion that pierces the side of 
the Christ, the higher principle in man. But when in 
the hand of the pure of heart this power can heal the 
very wound it caused. 



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sword, how it came up out of the water held by a hand 
draped in white. Excalibur represents light and truth, 
which is the weapon of the true Initiate. ^ 

In England there still hangs on a courthouse wall the 
Round Table of King Arthur. In the very center of 
the table is a beautiful rose painted in natural colors. 
This symbol is that of the Rosicrucians, the ancient 
alchemists, and there is a direct connection between 
the legend of the British King and the ancient phil- 
osophers of fire. 

Now let us turn our attention for a moment to the 
history of the Holy Grail, or the cup from which Christ 
drank at the Last Supper and which was said to have 
caught his blood when he was dying upon the cross. 
Ancient legends tell us that this cup was made from a 
sacred stone which had been the crown jewel of Lucifer, 
the dynamic energy of the universe. It was said that 
the green stone had been struck from the crown of 
Lucifer by the archangel Michael during the famous 
battle in heaven. 

After the death of Christ it is said that Joseph of 
Arimathea took the sacred cup and the spear of the 
Passion and carried them into a distant land. He wan- 
dered with his sacred relics through Europe and is said 
to have finally died, and those who came after him after 
many centuries of tribulation carried the sacred relics 
to Mount Salvart in northern Spain where they re- 
mained until Parsifal finally took the grail and spear 
back to the East where it is to be now preserved. 

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It is around this cup and spear that the legends of 
Parsifal and King Arthur have been written, and it is 
through study of this fact that we are able to better 
understand the mystery of the Great White Lodge of 
which the Round Table of Arthur and the circular 
temple of the knights of the Grail is a symbol. 

Although we no longer have the cup as a physical 
symbol, it is not gone from among us, and as in the 
days of old the brave knights of the Round Table went 
out to fight for right, so those knights of today who 
belong to the Great White Brotherhood go out into the 
world in the name of truth and labor with mankind and 
seek to right the wrongs of the world. It is said that 
the knights of Arthur's court always fought for virtue 
and purity, and so did those who rode out of Mount 
Salvart. 

The grail cup is the symbol of the creative force of 
nature; it is also the symbol of the human race which 
is slowly learning the mysteries of creation. Within 
the cup is the blood of Christ, that force which is trans- 
muting the body into soul, fast or slowly as we give it 
greater or lesser opportunity. 

In the sacred spear we find symbolized again the 
creative force, which in the hands of Klingsor, the evil 
one, wounds and causes suffering, but which when held 
by the pure Parsifal heals the very wound that it 
caused. 

A great lesson is being taught to man through these 
allegories, but the average person is unwilling to stop 

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The Knights of the Holy Grail 

and consider them. They do not realize that they them- 
selves are the ones whom the Elder Brothers of human- 
ity must use in the fight against the forces of evil. 
They do not realize that the dragons and ogres of the 
legends are their own lower natures which they must 
overcome. They do not see in the hand to hand combat 
of the knights of old for a lady's hand the higher and 
lower man fighting for the soul within. 

The knight of today does not realize that the white 
armor that he wears is his own purified body which is 
proof against all the attacks of vice and passion, but 
nevertheless this is the meaning of the legend. His 
shield is truth, which is a perfect protection to the 
inner man. His strong right arm is the knowledge and 
spiritual power he has developed within, and the sword 
that he uses is the spiritual light with which the pure 
flame of the spirit fire dispels the darkness of ignorance 
and the demons of lust. 

The sacred spear and the cup which he serves are the 
two poles of the creative life force within, the develop- 
ment of which he gains as he daily serves his fellow 
men. 

Far from the uninitiated the twelve Elder Brothers 
of mankind sitting around the circular table of the uni- 
verse watch the knights in their battle of life, and the 
time comes when the student having finished his work 
here is liberated at the foot of the Grail. There the 
candidate stands robed from head to foot in the armor 
of spirit and in the pure white of a body that has been 

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cleansed. Then the cloth is lifted from the sacred cup, 
and he is illuminated by the light which would have 
killed him had he seen it without purification. He then 
takes his place among the knights of the Round Table, 
and joins those who give up all and labor for humanity. 

When in sickness and in suffering we beg of the great 
unknown that he send us help, then indeed our knight 
comes to us as Lohengrin came to Elsa. When our 
loved ones pass into the great unknown, there stands 
the brother of the Grail, the invisible helper, who 
through days of labor has earned the right to become 
a member of that great band of servers who gather 
around the table of the King, and while their bodies are 
asleep still labor in their great search for light and 
truth, and pray for the day when they shall also become 
Kings of the Holy Grail. 



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CHAPTER VII. 

THE MYSTERY OF THE PYRAMID 

There comes a time in the development of the occult 
student when he understands one of the great secrets 
of the Initiates, and that is that every sacred thing out- 
side of himself stands for some organ or function 
within himself. This is, of course, true in the case of 
the Great Pyramid, except that this particular pile of 
stone said by many to be the oldest building on the 
surface of the earth, is the great symbol of composite 
man. In other words it stands for man as a unit. 

Let us first consider it simply from the exterior 
standpoint. When we first look at it in the distance it 
seems to be one great stone, but as we come closer we 
see that it is made of thousands of smaller stones, each 
one carefully fitted into place. Here we see the first 
likeness between the pyramid and man. We consider 
man to be a unit, but when we examine more closely, 
we find that he is a great number of small units, each 
working in harmony with the others. It Is the same 
with everything. We take a successful life and we 



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HOD SPIRIT 



Cross Section of tne Great Pyramid of Gizak. 



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77?<? Mystery of the Pyramids 

think of it as an entirety, but when we examine it, we 
find that it is a number of small achievements joined 
together. 

As thousands of workmen were used in the building 
of the pyramid, so there are unnumbered workmen at 
work in the building of our bodies, which are symbolical 
of the same building. 

There are many pyramids all over the world. We 
find them in South America and in Mexico; we find 
mounds which were made to represent them among 
the American Indians, and in Europe and Britain we 
find remnants of the same things. But there is only 
one real pyramid in all the world. Even the others in 
Egypt are but copies of the Great Pyramid, and were 
used as tombs for the Pharaohs, but nobody was ever 
found in Cheops, nor were there ever any signs that it 
had been so used. 

Now let us continue our analogy between the pyramid 
and man. If you will look at the accompanying illustra- 
tion, you will see the pyramid laid flat, and you will 
notice it is made of four triangles laid around the bast 
square. The four-sided base of the pyramid represents 
the four elements of which man's bodies are composed. 
These are hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen and carbon, or 
earth, water, fire, and air. These are called the base of 
all things, and upon this base the four bodies of man 
are raised, each from its own element. Thus the phys- 
ical body is raised from the earth. The vital body is 

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The Pyramid: 

Here we see the pyramid laid out so that the four 
triangles and the square are clearly seen. This repre- 
sents man once again, and the ancient Pyramid is man 
offering his higher being upon the altar of the Great 
Fire Spirit. 



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77/c 7 Mystery of the Pyramids 



raised from the water, the emotional body from the 
fire, and the mental body from the air. 

There are twelve lines used in the drawing of the 
four triangles, which stand for the twelvefold constitu- 
tion of man when it is complete: the threefold body, 
the threefold mind, the threefold soul, and the threefold 
spirit. It also gives us the twelve signs of the zodiac, 
divided into their respective groups. 




Out on the desert stands the Sphinx, the Guardian of 
the Threshold mentioned by Bulwer Lytton. It stands 



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The Sphinx: 

This is that mysterious being suspended 'twixt 
heaven and earth, which has the head of a human being 
and the body of an animal. In other words the Sphinx 
symbolizes man. 



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for the bodies of man, and is that strange being which 
must be passed before the student can go on in his 
development. The four fixed signs of which the Sphinx 
is a symbol are Taurus the Bull, Leo the Lion, Scorpio 
the Eagle, and Aquarius the Man, or the human head. 



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I have already given you some work on the sacrum 
bone, and I told you that it was the grave digger's 
spade. Here is a picture of the head of the Sphinx, and 
the inverted sacrum bone when it has been turned up- 
ward. We see the Sphinx in the inverted sacrum and 
also in it the inverted Masonic keystone. All this is 
very interesting, but unless we realize the inner mean- 
ing of it, its true value is lost. But it is not chance that 
these things should be so. 

You have most of you heard of the Dweller on the 
Threshold, that creature built by our own actions and 
mistakes. Well out on Egypt's desert it stands and 
bars the way to the pyramid, the temple of the higher 
man. And the message that it gives to the world is : 

"I am the bodies. If you would go on to the temple 
you must master me, for I am within you." 

The Sphinx again symbolizes man, with the mind and 
spirit of the human rising out of the animal desires and 
emotions. It is the riddle of the ages, and man is once 
more the answer. 

It is said that in ancient times the Sphinx was the 
gateway of the pyramid, and that there was an under- 
ground passage which led from the Sphinx to Cheops. 



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The Initiates of the Flame 

This would make the symbolism even more perfect, for 
the gateway to the spirit is through the bodies accord- 
ing to the ancients. 

Let us now enter the pyramid and passing through 
the corridors come to the King's Chamber as it is 
called. There are three great rooms in the pyramid 
which are of great interest to the student. The highest 
is the King's Chamber, then below that is the Queen's 
Chamber, and down below the surface of the earth is 
the Pit. Here we again find the great correlation be- 
tween the pyramid and man. The three rooms are the 
three great divisions in man which are the seats of the 
threefold spirit. The lower room is the generative sys- 
tem under the control of Jehovah. The center room or 
Queen's Chamber is the heart, under the control of the 
Christ ; and the upper room or the King's Chamber i's 
the brain, which is under the control of the Father. In 
this upper room is the coffer made of stone, the mean- 
ing of which has never been explained, but which the 
student recognizes as the third ventrical in the brain. 

It is quite certain also that this coffer was used as a 
tomb during initiation, when as is the case in the 
Masonic initiations of today, (which are the remnants 
of the ancient mysteries) the candidate was buried in 
the earth and resurrected, a symbol of the death of the 
lower man and the liberation of the higher. 

It is said that Moses was initiated in the Great Pyra- 
mid, and some also say that Jesus was instructed there 
also. Be that as it may, we know that for thousands 

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of years since the time it was built by the Atlanteans 
it has been the greatest temple of Initiation in the 
world. It seems also that its work is not yet done, for 
mutely it is teaching those who will see the mysteries 
of creation. 

It is said by many that it is the original Solomon's 
Temple, but this we know is not true, for while it may 
be the first and original material temple, the true tem- 
ple of Solomon is the universe, the Solarman's temple, 
which is slowly being rebuilt in man as the temple of 
the Soul of Man. 

There is probably no point that is as important in 
connection with the pyramid as that of the corner 
stone. On the very top of the great pyramid is a com- 
paratively flat place about thirty feet square. In other 
words the TRUE STONE WHICH IS THE HEAD OF 
ALL THE CORNERS IS MISSING. If we look at the 
reverse side of the United States seal, we find again 
the pyramid from which the top is separated. Omar 
Khayyam, the Persian Poet, gives us the secret of the 
keystone when he says : 

"From my base metal shall be filed a key, 
Which shall unlock the door he howls without." 

The value of the stone is better understood when you 
understand that it completes all of the triangles at 
once, and without it none of them are complete. 

This stone is the spirit in man, which fell from its 
high position, and has been lost beneath the rubbish of 



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The Key and the Cross: 

Upon the cross of matter that forms our bodies, 
hangs the key to all the mysteries of creation. It is 
our duty to take this key and with it unlock the door 
that conceals from us the unknown. This key is the 
spirit. Release it. 



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the lower man. This is the true cap stone that is now 
hidden in the pit of man's temple, and which he must 
exhume and place again as the true crown of his spirit- 
ual pyramid. 

He can only do this when he calls the thousands of 
workmen within himself together and binds them to the 
service of the higher man. There must be no traitors 
to murder the builder this time. And Lucifer, the one 
rejected by man as the devil, is the one who must 
through the planet Mars send man the dynamic energy 
which man himself must transmute from the fire of 
passion to the flame of spirit. He then must take the 
tools of the craft and cut and polish his own being into 
the cap stone of the Universal Temple. 

It is interesting to note how the casing stones that 
once made the pyramid so beautiful and true were car- 
ried away to build the cities nearby, and in connection 
with that it is interesting to note how the soul body of 
man, the casing stones of his spiritual temple, have 
been sacrificed in order that he might have material 
things. 

As we look at pictures of the ancient pyramid and 
Sphinx which have stood on Egypt's sands for ages, let 
us see in them our own mystery temple, made without 
the sound of hammer or the voice of workman. And 
as we sadly think of this mighty ruin, broken by ages 
of neglect, let us remember our temple, and that its 
corner stone is missing also and our walls are falling 
with neglect. Let us learn the lesson which it teaches, 



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hasten to perfect our pyramid, cap it with the stone of 
spirit, offer upon its altars our sacrifice to the Great 
Sun Spirit, and bury our lower nature in its ancient 
coffer. Then for us will its mysteries be revealed, and 
the sealed lips of the Sphinx give up their secret. 




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WfHERE TOUR 

TREASURE IS, 

THERE WILL TOUR 

HEART BE ALSO. 




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THE WHITE GRAIL 




Choose now your path 

K 

Service. 

Self Sacrifice. 

Purification. 
Love. 

Study, 



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THE BLACK GRAIL 




Choose now your path 

Prosperity at others expense. 
Selfishness. 

Short-cuts. 

Mastered by appetite. 
Comfort. 



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PREMIER PRINTING COMPANY 

512 West Twelfth Street 

Los Angeles 



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